Goal setting can seem like a fairly straightforward process. You likely
write down whatever you want to achieve and then begin to do what you can to reach that goal.
But somehow, there still seems to be a lack of direction in our approach
which significantly diminishes our chances of success.
In order to truly have a shot at accomplishing those goals, we need to have a way to measure
our progress and achievement. And this is where the OKR framework comes in.
OKR or Objectives and Key results is a goal-setting framework that was initially
developed by Intel Corporation CEO Andrew Grove & Man of the Year in the 1970s. Grove introduced the
OKR concept to Intel as a way for the company to improve its success rate for meeting its
objectives throughout the organization. “The objectives and the key results. And
they match the two purposes. The objective is the direction. The key result has to be measurable.
At the end, you can look and without any argument, say did I do that or did I not do that, yes, no?”
Since then, OKR has grown in popularity in the corporate world
having been adopted by businesses like Google, Netflix, Twitter and AirBnB.
The essence of this framework is to set challenging or ambitious goals with measurable
results. Starting out with your Objective. Simply put, an Objective is what you’re
striving to achieve. It is your main goal that informs your actions and process.
The Objective can be thought of as “The What” that you are working to accomplish.
For every objective, you have 2-5 Key Results. The Key Results are the benchmarks that you use to
help track your progress. They serve as metrics of your success and indicate whether you are heading
in the right direction. They can be thought of as “The How” you are going to reach your objective.
Now, there is obviously a clear distinction between your Objective and Key Results.
Objectives set the direction that you’re heading in and should not contain a metric,
while Key Results often provide the measure to gauge that progress. They typically should have
some kind of quantitative metric. For instance, One of my Objectives was - Increase my
knowledge of personal finance and improve my relationship with money
My Key Results would be - Read 3 books on personal finance by the end of 2020
Create a 6-12 month emergency fund to provide me with some security
And contribute consistently to a retirement account.
Each one of these key results gave me tangible goal posts that I could have my eye on
and work towards that would ultimately get me closer to my overall objective.
John Doerr, an early investor in Google and perhaps the main reasons for OKR’s popularity
has described the structure of an OKR as “I will __ as measured by __. The
first blank being your objective and the second blank being your key results. He
has also gone on to say that many of us approach goal setting in the wrong way,
because we don’t move towards those goals with a sense of purpose and inspiration.
At first look, one may think that an OKR is suspiciously similar to your run of the mill KPI
or Key Performance Indicator, but KPIs are generally used as reporting measures that
have less to do with goal setting. They also tend to be less specific since they
aren’t objective tied metrics. I think that’s what sets the OKR method apart, that we often
get lost in pursuing our goals simply as an idea or concept, but we don’t generally have
results to quantify our approach and improve the odds of us actually achieving that goal.
Now, there are plenty of things that pop-up in our schedule that we need to take care of, but
having an idea of what your OKR is also gives you the ability to manage your tasks better
and see whether these spontaneous items are actually moving you towards your major objectives.
In my experience, using the OKR framework has helped me stay focused on what I’m trying to
accomplish. If there are others that I’m collaborating or working with, knowing
our goals and benchmarks has helped us become better aligned with what we’re striving for.
The great thing is that this framework is flexible because you can use it to evaluate what’s working
with regard to your aspirations and along the way, you’ll be able to track where you’re succeeding
and where you might be falling short. And that’s the whole point, that you learn from each attempt
at a goal and use actual metrics to know where you can pivot and improve as you keep moving forward.
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